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Working with clinical trials a common theme for KOL migration into industry
NEW ORLEANS — A large number of doctors are joining companies as chief medical officers, OSN Chief Medical Editor Richard L. Lindstrom, MD, said in remarks at the Ophthalmology Innovation Summit, where he introduced a panel discussion highlighting the migration of key opinion leaders into industry.
“We have a significant example of that [on the panel] here,” Lindstrom said, as he solicited stories of balancing practice and business from Rajesh K. Rajpal, MD, Emmett T. Cunningham Jr., MD, PhD, MPH, Steven C. Schallhorn, MD, Johathan Talamo, MD, Jai G. Parekh, MD, MBA, Stephen S. Lane, MD, and Ron Kurtz, MD. A common theme among the panelists was their history of participation in clinical trials and interaction with industry throughout their careers.
Rajpal, who is chief medical officer for Avedro, said, “I was a principal investigator in the clinical trials for collagen cross-linking, and as the company was going through some changes, there was an opportunity to get involved. I had been doing a fair amount of other consulting work and clinical trial work, and I enjoyed the interaction with industry and clinical practice, so that was the opportunity to do both.”
Rajpal said he continues to practice about 25% of the time.
Cunningham is managing director of Clarus Funds. Before making the move to working with venture capital, he spent about 5 years as the lead for the medical strategy team for the start-up Eyetech Pharmaceuticals. Before that, he was responsible for areas of clinical development at Pfizer. Cunningham does see patients still at least a half-day a week, he said.
Schallhorn, chief medical officer for Carl Zeiss Meditec, said his large organization experience began when he served in the U.S. Navy. After that, he helped out as a medical director for a large organization in Europe. Those experiences combined with work in clinical trials and close work with industry, made his joining Zeiss “a natural fit,” he said.
Schallhorn, too, still practices.
Talamo is chief medical officer for Johnson & Johnson Vision.
“My trajectory is similar in many ways to Raj’s and Steve’s,” Talamo said. “I practiced for 25 years, and I still see patients on occasion in the Boston area. I enjoyed tremendously the part of my life while doing clinical trials and interacting with various sized companies, and found that those relationships grew in number and depth over the years. I made the decision a few years ago to join a smaller company as chief medical officer — Ocular Therapeutix, and more recently, about 4 months ago, joined a much larger company — J&J.”
While acting as vice president of eye care, global head/medical affairs, as well as head of dermatology global head/medical affairs in the office of CMO at Allergan, Parekh also continues to see patients in a “busy” practice, he said.
“I’d been consulting for the last 15 years for a plethora of companies, and speaking ... I was giving talks every other day, and it was getting a bit cumbersome as I hit my 40s,” Parekh said. “I decided to go for a singular focus ... and I’ve been happy.”
Lane, chief medical officer at Alcon, said he has been working with industry since his fellowship days. For the past 20 years or more, he has been one of the medical monitors for Alcon for their clinical trials and has been involved as principal investigator in many clinical investigations. Those experiences were “kind of a natural progression as time went on into the position of CMO,” Lane said.
Lane tries to work 40% of his time at his clinical practice, he said.
Kurtz, CEO at RxSight, said his medical career has coexisted with his career in industry.
“I had the opportunity to be involved with a start-up prior to going to medical school, and then during my career had the opportunity to work in industry at a number of companies. Until recently, the last few years, I always maintained a practice in academia but eventually stopped that,” Kurtz said. – by Patricia Nale, ELS
Reference:
Blended careers: Industry and medicine. Presented at Ophthalmology Innovation summit; Nov. 9, 2017; New Orleans.
Disclosures: Cunningham is managing director, Clarus Funds. Kurtz is president and CEO of RxSight. Lane is chief medical officer and head global franchise clinical strategy, Alcon, and medical director, Associated Eye Care. Lindstrom is founder and attending surgeon at Minnesota Eye Consultants. Parekh is founder, EyeCare Consultants of NJ, and vice president, global medical affairs office of CMO, eyecare and dermatology, Allergan. Rajpal is chief medical officer, Avedro. Schallhorn is chief medical officer, Carl Zeiss Meditec. Talamo is chief medical officer, vice president medical and clinical affairs, Johnson & Johnson Vision.